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Regional court Cologne: This is where the former CDU politician is tried
Photo:
Oliver Berg / dpa
Hans-Josef B. shakes his head.
He leans his upper body over the dock and peers through glasses and perspex over at his defense attorney.
Krystian M. sits a few meters further on the witness stand and explains what B. is said to have done to him on the night of December 29th to 30th, 2019.
"Dreckspack", "Dreckskanacken", "Drecksausländer" is said to have shouted to him and his three friends when they walked past his house on the banks of the Rhine in Cologne, drank vodka and possibly heard music a little too loud.
There was a battle of words.
Then, according to the prosecution, B. pulls out a Bernadelli Model 60, Browning caliber 7.65 millimeters, and pulls the trigger.
The projectile pierces M's right upper arm and exits on her right shoulder.
M. and his friends flee.
A little later the police come and take B. to the station.
Since Friday morning, Hans-Josef B., 74, has had to answer for dangerous bodily harm, insult and unauthorized possession of weapons before the Cologne district court. The incident was two years ago, but the pandemic and various changes of lawyer had prevented an earlier termination. The alleged act had brought the CDU in particular into distress. B. got a well-known media lawyer to the side and tried to keep his identity under lock and key. But it quickly leaked out who should have shot: Hans-Josef B., CDU member, since 2014 for his party in the Cologne-Porz district parliament.
In the end, the incident even occupied the top staff in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus.
A trigger-happy racist in your own ranks?
Violence should have no place in society, tweeted General Secretary Paul Ziemiak.
"Such behavior is not based on our Christian-democratic values." B. stepped down from all political offices.
"There was an intent to kill here"
In B's district, the group "Tatort Porz - no rest after the shot" was formed, which was set up on this Friday morning with a canopy and banner in front of the district court. The organization took the incident as an opportunity to raise public awareness of the issue of racism. But also to counter possible prejudices before the start of the process: Mobbing young people with a migrant background who nobody believes anyway. The activists also consider the charge of dangerous bodily harm to be inadequate. "There was an intent to kill here," says a spokeswoman.
M., 20 years old at the time of the crime, had turned to the press because a newspaper had identified him as a police officer. In fact, he was once involved in a brawl, but never came to trial. He feared a perpetrator-victim reversal, he said in court on Friday. He wanted to counteract this.
The 14th Grand Criminal Chamber is facing a difficult trial.
Because the focus is no longer just the shot, but above all whether and how B. should have insulted his alleged victim.
Since the NSU, judges have been called upon to be more sensitive.
Section 46 of the Criminal Code has been tightened.
Since 2015, “racist, xenophobic or other inhumane” motives or goals of the offender have to be given “special” consideration when determining the sentence.
The core question is now: Was there really such a thing as the racist insults, as M., his friends and the prosecution claim.
Or were they invented as an afterthought, as the defense believes.
AfD-related content on Facebook
In court, local politician B. presents himself as a good man with an impeccable average biography. As a man fighting for his reputation. He does not want to express himself, he has a statement read out through his defense lawyer: Married three times, two children, a professional life as an insurance salesman, for many years in the CDU, and never appeared as a racist, as he emphasizes. During the refugee crisis in 2015, he even wanted to find apartments for the refugees. Nevertheless, he did not agree with the Merkel course, he admits. On Facebook, he shared AfD-related, sometimes racist content.
Local politician B. is a passionate marksman, has been a member of several clubs in the course of his life, has ample experience with handguns and long guns, which he has always kept properly in his house.
Just not the alleged weapon.
A friend bequeathed it to him before he died.
And when he was threatened by young people in front of his house in the summer of 2019, he put this pistol in his bedside cabinet for self-protection.
Right next to the Smith & Wesson, caliber 40, for which he is also said not to have had a gun license.
"I'm not afraid of your air pump"
According to B's account, the incident was a little different: That night he wanted to go out into the garden with the dog again. Because voices and music could be heard outside and his wife warned him of danger, he put the Bernadelli in his right back pocket just in case.
The old German shepherd ran around the corner as always and barked. Then B. claims to have noticed a scuffle in front of his chest-high property wall. He went up to the figures and offered to fetch the police. "We're the police ourselves," someone called. B. believed in a civil patrol. But one of the men had become aggressive, berated B. and hit him. He broke a joint of his left middle finger. Even presenting the weapon could not intimidate the alleged attacker. "I'm not afraid of your air pump," he is supposed to have said.
Then B. inserted the magazine, reloaded it and stretched his arm up to fire a warning shot.
According to the indictment, M. hit him on the arm, according to the prosecution and with more than two per thousand in his blood, a shot had been fired and the four men had run away.
Nothing happens, B. thought, went in and drank a schnapps.
He does not want to rule out the possibility that the word “dirt pack” might have been used during the dispute.
But nothing more.
Weak point in the statements
M., on the other hand, claims that B. acted aggressively from the start and insulted him racially from the start: "Filthy bastards", "Filthy foreigners".
"Freak," "Fucking Nazi," "Shut up," M. snapped back.
"The usual," as he says.
Then his buddy wanted to pull him away, B. shot.
The defense strategy is clear: destroy the credibility of the witnesses.
B's lawyer Mutlu Günal, known for his tough pace, has identified a weak point in the statements of the four pals.
According to the files, Ms. companions mentioned insults in the first interrogation, but none of them was racist.
It was not until the second interrogation, about ten days after the crime, that the specific terms were used.
For several hours, B.'s defense attorney confronted M. with his statements and those of his friends.
Nevertheless, the defender is always loud, and now and then abusive.
The chairman has to interrupt the meeting several times.
Günal does not believe in a racist derailment of his client, but in an agreement.
He told SPIEGEL: “All four are being convicted of lies.
We assume so. "
The process will continue next Friday.
Then Ms. friends may also testify as witnesses.
